Macroeconomics From the Bottom Up

John K. Galbraith tells the economic history of a couple of economies (mostly UK, US and to a lesser extent Germany) from the end of the first world war until the Bretton Woods conference. He also provides a biography of John M. Keynes and outlines some central ideas of Keynes such as the possibility of an underemployment equilibrium. Galbraith complements the historical remarks by the biographical experiences he made in economic management (and in engaging with Keynes) serving as deputy head of the Office for Price administration during the second world war.

Das Seminar wirft einen historischen Blick auf Fragen ökonomischer Entwicklung und ökonomischer Theorie und verbindet eine Einführung in die Wirtschaftsgeschichte mit einer vergleichenden Diskussion unterschiedlicher ökonomischer Denkrichtungen und Theorien.

Michael Kalecki famously remarked “I have found out what economics is; it is the science of confusing stocks with flows”. Stock-Flow Consistent (SFC) models were developed precisely to address this kind of confusion. The basic intuition of SFC models is that the economy is built up as a set of intersecting balance sheets, where transactions between entities are called flows and the value of the assets/liabilities they hold are called stocks. Wages are a flow; bank deposits are a stock, and confusing the two directly is a category error. In this edition of the pluralist showcase I will first describe the logic of SFC models – which is worth exploring in depth – before discussing empirical calibration and applications of the models. Warning that there is a little more maths in this post than usual (i.e. some), but you should be able to skip those parts and still easily get the picture.

Das Grundgesetz gibt uns Rechte von Natur aus, aber welche Rechte hat die Natur? Verleiht sie nur Rechte, hat aber selbst keine? Das kann nicht sein. Ein Essay von Diedrich Lange.